dyl (03/14/83)
God has shown me several reasons why the Bible is not written to the liking of some of us. But first let me point out that the Bible has been the best seller since the printing press was invented and for no other reason except that God is the author. The popularity of the Bible should be judged like a king - the size of his kingdom. So the dislike of a few people is highly insignificant. 1) God uses his people to bear witness for him because it is mankind's salvation. Which man has hung around long enough to finish the whole book? The Bible is in overlays. To get the entire picture of one subject, all the overlays have to be in place. 2) Let no man can boast. If everybody can understand the Bible in one pass, then we can boast that we can learn about God ourselves. But now, we can only claim that God has chosen to reveal to us only those things that he pleases. Praise God! Not only are we dependent on God for understanding of the Bible, we also are dependent on our brothers and sisters. 3) The Bible is written in our hearts. The printed Bible is the written word of God. But when God quicken certain words to us, those words become the living words - specific words for specific situation for specific person. The living words are written in our hearts. If out hearts are illiterate, we would not be able to understand all the written words. floyd!dyl
tim (03/14/83)
I stopped corresponding with Dave Lee a few weeks ago because he seemed obviously beyond the reach of any form of reason. Since then, I have seen him say many foolish things on the net, but have remained silent until now. Dave claimed that the popularity of the Bible is evidence of its validity, and that the opinions of "a few people" who don't like it are of no importance. He can't mean this. First, this implies that the vast majority of people on Earth are Christians, an outright falsehood. In fact, the majority of people on Earth are not-Christians. I usually consider "a few" to mean fewer than a couple of billion. Second, and more importantly, the majority opinion is of no value. As was recently pointed out in an article on dowsing, "If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." (Loosely translated from the Analects of Confucius) I don't know what I can add to this; it falls in the category of obvious truths. Finally, about the whole issue of Biblical contradictions: It doesn't matter if there are any or not. Lack of contradiction does not imply truth, only consistency. Existence of contradiction does not imply falsehood, when dealing with inconceivables such as omnipotence, which necessarily imply their own systems of reasoning. In other words: give it up! Tim Maroney
sjk (03/14/83)
It seems to me that the only Biblical "validity" worth anything is whether or not it inspires you towards better living (and I'd rather not argue what's "better"). I say the same for all books claimed to be of divine inspiration... if the Bhagavad-Gita turns me on and the Bible doesn't, who are YOU to tell ME where my heart is at??? The majority of Biblical and Christian preaching these days is hardly done from a loving space. And like I said in net.philosophy, how would I know you're a Christian if you didn't tell me? By your works?? scott <ucbvax!sjk, sjk@ucbvax>
palmer (03/14/83)
Just a brief aside on Dave Lee's article. In it, he states that the Bible is the all-time best seller because it was written by God. The Guiness Book Of World Records, apparently, is a quickly moving second, and it was written by a beer company. Just Thought I'd put things in perspective: David Palmer